Recently in the Privacy Category

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I've seen a number of posts about AOL giving access to information about its customers to the Department of Homeland Security. The posts seem to be citing an article from October 3 by Martin McKinney in "The Financial Reporter (U.K.)". The quote refers to a Department of Commerce report. I can't find the original Martin McKinney post or the DoC report. Does anyone have the original sources? Also, is AOL giving the DHS any MORE information than other consumer Internet companies in the US of that size? It seems to me that we should ASSUME that everyone is giving "unfettered...

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BBCUS teens 'reject' key freedoms A significant number of US high-school students regard their constitutional right to freedom of speech as excessive, according to a new survey. Over a third of the 100,000 students questioned felt the First Amendment went "too far" in guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly. Only half felt newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that did not have the government's approval. It's a bit scary when "normal" shifts like this. Here is an old Encyclopedia Britannica Films video clip from 1946 (I think) about despotism that they showed to children in schools. Amazing...

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I realized that I haven't made a new PGP key in a while. I just installed the new PGP and made a new key. I've signed it with all of the old keys that I can remember the passwords for and revoked the second to the oldest one. The most recent one still works, but please switch to this one as soon as you can. Here is the public key: joi.asc and here is the fingerprint: B652 199B 6996 219B 62AE 6364 E349 8387 783D 4E0A I keep wondering if I should make expiring keys, but it seems like it...

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AP via YahooMan Killed in London Not Linked to Blasts By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer Sat Jul 23, 7:16 PM ET LONDON - Police identified the man who was chased down in a subway and shot to death by plainclothes officers as a Brazilian and expressed regret Saturday for his death, saying they no longer believed he was tied to the recent terror bombings. [...] The man shot at the Stockwell subway station was identified as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27. Witnesses said he was wearing a heavy, padded coat when plainclothes police chased him into a subway car,...

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Ethan Zuckerman @ Global Voices OnlineSecond draft of Anonymous Blogging Guide I posted, some weeks back, the first draft of a technical guide to anonymous blogging. I've gotten great feedback from folks all over the world and have just posted a second draft of the guide on the Global Voices wiki, inviting collaborators to help me improve it. If you're interested in the suject of anonymous blogging, please visit the guide and lend a hand in improving it. (If you're going to participate in editing this document, two requests: One, create an account on our wiki, so we can keep...

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Today was the City of Yokohama Committee for the Protection of Identification Information Committee meeting. I was appointed to this committee in 2003 in the wake of their decision to allow their citizens to opt out of the Japanese Basic Resident Code database. I was reappointed again today. I joined a number of these government committees to try to help protect rights, prevent stupid decisions and change bad laws, but I am increasingly frustrated by the Japanese bureaucracy and the ability to cause any change through these committees. (Although local government committees are clearly more sincere than central government committees.)...

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Donna Wentworth @ EFF: Deep LinksIt's Official: TSA Lied Two government reports confirm what EFF and other privacy advocacy organizations have long known: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lied about its role in using airline passengers as guinea pigs for testing "Secure Flight" - the latest version of a fundamentally flawed passenger-profiling system for screening terrorists. And not only did TSA lie, it lied repeatedly, to everyone. A DHS report [PDF], released this past Friday, reveals that TSA misled individuals, the press, and Congress in 2003 and 2004. A GAO report [PDF], released Monday, also shows that Secure Flight has...

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IPIt should be noted that as with fingerprinting, some countries MAY demand similar action from our citizens entering their country. Dave ------ Forwarded Message From: rose Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:49:32 -0800 (PST) To: dave Subject: "1984" has arrived! DHS demanding on site acccess to email accounts of selected incoming aliens Hi Dave, As an attorney, practicing in the areas of international business and immigration law, it has come to my attention through discussions with other attorneys, that DHS is pulling aside "selected" aliens at entry checkpoints and bringing them into a separate room which contains a DHS computer...

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Donna Wentworth @ CopyfightYour ISP Knows You're a Dog Fred von Lohmann, in a Law.com column on the importance of preserving anonymous speech on the Internet: "[R]emember, on the Internet, your ISP knows you're a dog, and your adversary is only a subpoena away from compromising your constitutionally protected right to bark anonymously."Anonymity is a very important issue in the context of terrorism and the Internet and will be on the agenda for the Internet track of the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security that I am co-organizing. This is also an important issue in the context of...

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tins ::: Rick Klau's weblogBonus goofy news item of the week: Paris Hilton’s Blackberry was hacked. Quoth the source for this bombshell:“It’s one thing to have people looking at your sex tapes, but having people reading your personal e-mails is a real invasion of privacy.”Clearly, different people have different definitions for invasion of privacy....

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AP"The bill, which President Bush is expected to sign, would make it a crime to videotape or photograph the naked or underwear-covered private parts of a person without consent when the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Conviction could lead to a fine of not more than $100,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both."via Emily at Smart Mobs I wonder what they're going to do about mobloggin' Aibos... On a more serious note, although "it carves out exceptions for law enforcement, intelligence and prison work," what does this mean exactly? How about private security cameras? I...

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In Airport 'Pat-Downs' and Fear of Retaliation, Dan Gillmor links to a New York Times story about U.S. airport screening and women who are humiliated but afraid to retaliate. This is how profiling and lists will begin to inhibit our actions and free speech. What's your national ID # again?...

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Donna Wentworth @ EFF Deep LinksGovt. Responds; Indymedia Seizure Order May Have Come from Italy The US government has responded (PDF) to EFF's motion to unseal the mysterious government order that resulted in the seizure of two servers hosting more than 20 Independent Media Center (IMC) websites. The reply, which argues that the order should remain secret, contains details that suggest that the order may have originated in Italy. In the reply, the government contends that the seizure order should be kept sealed because (1) EFF and our Indymedia clients lack standing to contest the seizure, (2) the request for...

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I'm going to Israel this month and South Africa next month. I've heard from a few people that both Israeli stamps and South African stamps in your passport make it very difficult when traveling to Arab countries. Does anyone know if this is true? Is there any way to ask them NOT to stamp your passport? Is THAT a cause for being hassled?...

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Electronic Frontier FoundationNo "Fishing License" for the RIAA This just in: the Supreme Court has denied cert in RIAA v. Verizon, the case in which the recording industry initially won the right to unmask an anonymous KaZaA user with a special non-judicial, PATRIOT Act-like subpoena under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DC Circuit reversed (PDF) that ruling, but the RIAA appealed. Now the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case. [...] Said EFF's Wendy Seltzer, who worked on the case, "The Supreme Court's refusal to take the case leaves the DC Circuit's well reasoned opinion as law:...

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The FeatureEncouraging Cameraphone Use -- For Less Than Encouraging Reasons Instead of banning them, Chinese authorities have creatively adapted cameraphones as yet another tool to control its citizens, if the latest allegations prove to be true. Authorities there reportedly threatened pro-democracy radio talk show hosts, after which they all quit. This didn't involve cameraphones until new reports emerged that authorities have contacted the families of callers to these shows still living on the mainland. They have been told to convince their relatives to vote for pro-Beijing candidates and then snap a picture of their ballots with a cameraphone to send...

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The US Transporation Security Administration (TSA) announced that CAPPS II, the controversial passenger profiling system is back looking a bit more shy and sporting a new name, "Secure Flight." It still sounds bad and they'll start testing it within the next 30-60 days. via Kevin @ EFF: Deep Links...

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Donna Wentworth @ EFF Deep LinksArmy Okays Computer Spying JetBlue ignited a huge privacy scandal when the news broke that the airline secretly provided more than 5 million passenger records to Torch Concepts, a military contractor. Yet the Army Inspector General Agency concluded [PDF] that JetBlue did not violate the Privacy Act. The reason: Torch never looked up individuals by name, but instead used a computer to dig through and analyze their private information. This is quite disturbing. I guess this means that taking massive amounts of data and crunching through them to create "profiles" is OK. I wonder how...

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Cryptome is one of my primary sources of documents that get released to the public through a variety of sources. I link to it quite often from my blog. ABC News questions the value of the public's right to know, vs the risk of "helping the enemy." I have a feeling that terrorists are pretty good at using the Internet and probably already have access to most of the stuff on Cryptome. I think that it could be argued that they are helping terrorists by making the information so easy to find, but I personally think that Cryptome and other...

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Declan McCullaghSheriff misusing FBI computer can't be sued A federal appeals court said this week that the sheriff of Shawnee County, Kan., could not be sued for snooping through an FBI database for dirt on political enemies.Oh yay. The FBI's Interstate Identification Index (III) he abused has 50.5 million people. I wonder what happens when they have even better information on people. So much of the law protects the police and assumes they are "good". In Japan, when I talk about the possibility of cases like this, people laugh. Information collected about people by the government is and will be...

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CNETAsiaJapan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips Japanese authorities decide tracking is best way to protect kids The rights and wrongs of RFID-chipping human beings have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream. Now, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school. This reminds me of the lyrics to the Suicidal Tendencies song Institutionalized, "Wait, what do you mean, what are you talking about, we decided!? My best interest?! How can you know what's my best interest is? How...

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I originally saw this article in the IHT, but found it online on E-Commerce News. Howard W. FrenchChina's Web Police Send Mixed Message ...Internet cafe users in China have long been subject to an extraordinary range of controls. They include cameras placed discreetly throughout the establishments to monitor and identify users and Web masters, and Internet cafe managers who keep an eye on user activity, whether electronically or by patrolling the premises. The average Internet user, meanwhile, neither sees nor, in many cases, suspects the activities of a force widely estimated to number as many as 30,000 Internet police officers....

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Bruce Schneier has written an interesting article discussing the accusation of Ahmed Chalabi of informing Iran that the US had broken its codes and when Iran knew that the NSA was cracking their codes. He digs into the history of Crypto AG, the NSA and Iran. He links to an article about Hans Buehler, the Crypto AG salesman who was arrested by Iran in 1992 on suspicion that Crypto AG had installed back doors in its encryption machines. There is no conclusion, but this story reminds me of Crytonomicon and the interesting world of information, misinformation and spying....

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Japan TodayChips may be implanted in imported dogs to prevent rabies TOKYO — Japan plans to implant microchips under the skin of imported dogs in order to prevent rabies from making inroads into the country, government officials said Tuesday. The plan intended for strict individual recognition of imported dogs was confirmed the same day at a meeting on the nation's quarantine system against rabies of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the officials said. (Kyodo News)via Louis I wonder when we'll be start getting records in our chips instead of stamps...

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Cory @ Boing BoingEnron traders gloating about screwing California CBS has got hold of tapes of conversations between Enron employees during the California rolling blackouts. The conversations are amazing, basically a bunch of crooks gloating about the savage rogering they're giving to the people of California and how much money they're making. This has put fresh fire into the bellies of lawmakers who have renewed their vows to decapitate Enron's management and stake their heads on pikes outside of every polling place before election day. Employee 1: "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California? Employee...

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News24.comRumsfeld bans phone cameras London - Cellphones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported on Sunday. Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US defence department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones. "Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works. via Smartmobs The...

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This should be a cool event. I'll be participating remotely in some way, but if you can make it, you should. I'm on the program committee.Subject: Int'l Workshop on Inverse Surveillance: Camphones, 'glogs, and eyetaps Call for Participation: International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance: Cameraphones, Cyborglogs, and Computational seeing aids; exploring and defining a research agenda Date: 2004 April 12th. Time: 12:00noon to 4pm, EST (a working lunch will be served) Location: Colony Hotel (1-866-824-9330), 89 Chestnut Street, Toronto...

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Future NowBlack boxes for taxis According to dottocomu, Japanese taxi firm "Nihon Kotsu has announced it is to introduce "flight recorders" to its fleet--a device that will record video as seen from the driver's seat for 18 seconds spanning before and after an accident." via Ross...

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Seth says he wants to banish anonymous communications.Seth GodinVirus writers are always anonymous. Vicious political lies (with faked photoshop photos of political leaders, or false innuendo about personal lives) are always anonymous as well. Spam is anonymous. eBay fraudsters are anonymous too. It seems as though virtually all of the problems of the Net stem from this one flaw, and its one I’ve riffed on before. If we can eliminate anonymity online, we create a far more civil place.I disagree. Although most vicious attacks I have received have been anonymous, I still believe there is a role for anonymity and...

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I was talking to Peter yesterday about the risk of accidentally getting on weird lists or being profiled as a threat. Hanging out with, or communicating with the wrong people online or on the phone could land you on a list that might get you hassled at the airport or worse. They apparently used social network theory to find the person who would know where Saddam was. Similarly, I could see people using all sorts of social network theory to figure out who to wiretap or hassle. The thought was that if you hang out with enough people, you might...

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I just heard from Paul Martino, the CTO and Founder of Tribe.net, that they were working on FOAF and RSS support for Tribe. Cool. There are going to be a lot of issues such as privacy, but I think that having companies like Tribe seriously working on FOAF will bring these issues front and center and make some of these theoretical discussions very concrete and productive....

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Roger Clarke, one of my favorite privacy experts, rips apart the Australian Government's attempt to make their face recognition technology trial look good. Face recognition systems have not been found to work well and are very intrusive. Here's another attempt to make them look better than they are....

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As a former student, I sure wish I had had RateMyTeachers.com (via Seb) when I was in school. I would have had a lot to say and I would have felt justified. Maybe I wouldn't have had to start our underground newspaper. On the other hand, I can see how this might be abused. There are some thoughtful comments from many people about the "Adopt A Reporter" idea over on PressThink. This is not a new issue, but an old issue that continues to accelerate. As Loic points out, blogging helps you manage your own identity instead of leaving it...

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Bruce SchneierSlouching toward Big Brother Rarely do we discuss how little identification has to do with security, and how broad surveillance of everyone doesn't really prevent terrorism. Bruce writes about how security is a trade-off and how what we're giving up is not worth what we're getting in the war on terror through surveillance in the United States....

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I remember when everyone shouted into their cell phones and thought that their batteries drained faster when they made long distance phones. I remember when people (who now have cell phones) swore to me that they'd never have a cell phone. I remember when cell phones looked more like military radios. I think it's fine to gripe about technology, but I would warn those people who swear they'll never use a technology. Technology evolves and so do social norms. We've been having a dialog recently about the relationship between social norms and technology. I think this is part of the...

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I'm giving a speech about the future of the Internet tomorrow afternoon from 2:30pm-3:30pm JST. The speech will be at the Rakuten New Year party. (Rakuten acquired Infoseek Japan and I am now on the Portal Group advisory committee.) I'll try to stream it, but it will be in Japanese. My slides are in English and I've put my outline on my wiki. Please feel free to add comments or links to examples on the wiki. The outline just lists the topics I will cover, but not what I'm going to say. ;-) I'll be giving live demos of #joiito...

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danah has a good rant in response to Cory's thoughts on technologists that create technologies which cause awkward social situations.danah boydSo, in fleshing out Cory's call to technologists, i'd ask all technologists to consider not only what problems a technology solves, but what new ones could emerge. Start thinking like a writer or an abuser of technology. Imagine how people could misuse a technology to hurt others. Consider who gains and loses power from such technology. It's a fascinating exercise and far more fulfilling than just thinking about who benefits from something. And besides, then you won't always be thinking...

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How many people who blog know that many blogs automatically send trackbacks or send pings to pingers sites like weblogs.com? How many bloggers know that these pings trigger services like Technorati to include their posts in an index and that any mention of my blog in their private diary cause a link to their diary to show up in my sidebar within minutes? One of the things that some of us forget is that it's not all about attention. Most people want a little more attention than they get, but they usually want it from the right people and only...

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The governor of Nagano ordered an security audit of their network with a focus on the Basic Residents Registry system of the central government. I was asked to take a look at the audit and provide a 3rd party opinion. Since I am on the central government panel working on the security of the Basic Residents Registry, my letter has become a bit controversial and apparently my phone is ringing off the hook right now in Tokyo. Lucky for me I'm in the US...I'm not looking forward to returning to Tokyo.The central government denies security problems and I am going to have to deal with this when I return to Tokyo...The audit is not yet completed and my audit of the audit is an opinion based on incomplete information. I will be meeting with both sides when I return to Tokyo and will probably be required to write another opinion after the final results of the audit have been submitted and I have heard the arguments from the central government.Mainichi reports some of this in EnglishHere's the letter:December 11, 2003Governor Yasuo TanakaDear Governor Tanaka:I have reviewed in detail the security audit that your outside auditors conducted on three towns in Nagano. I reviewed their process, data and analysis. I also interviewed the key members of the team for several hours and discussed their methodology and conclusions.Generally speaking, the security level at the sites was below average and a variety of personal information about your citizens is at risk of being stolen and modified.The team conducted audits from the Internet and from inside the local government offices. The team was given very limited time to conduct their audits. The penetration test from the Internet was not successful. The tests from inside the government offices were quite successful. The audit was limited to computers inside the local government offices, so the Jyukinet was not attacked directly. However, the computer that connects directly to Jyukinet, the “CS server” and the “Reams server” which is inside the local government network both have databases of the Jyukinet data of the citizens living in the city. Both of these servers were vulnerable and the audit team was able to take control of them. This would theoretically allow them to edit, delete and create new citizen records. It was not tested, but it is likely that editing this database would cause these false records to be sent to the central Jyukinet system.In addition, there were numerous files containing sensitive personal information unrelated to Jyukinet accessible on the local government network with no protection.Although it was not possible to penetrate the local government network from the Internet, there were dialup accounts for remote offices that allowed users to connect to the local government’s network. It is possible that these dialup accounts could be exploited to allow someone to dial into the network. In addition, the library in one city was directly connected to the network. As anyone can use the library’s machines or connect their computer to the network, anyone can download the sensitive files being “shared” on the machines without any “hacker skills”.Breaking into the CS Server and the Reams server, which contained Jyukinet data for the local citizens, was quite easy. They were running systems that had not been properly updated with security patches. The passwords were very obvious on the system as well as on the database and were quickly cracked. The software running on the server was written with “buffer overflow” vulnerabilities that show a lack of understanding of security by the developer of the code. I recommend a third party security audit of the software running on these systems. A computer engineer using freely available tools would be able to exploit any of these vulnerabilities to gain access to the Jyukinet data.In summary, I believe that the security level of the networks were below average and any average computer network engineer could break into and steal or damage a variety of personal information including Jyukinet information. The people working in the office and in particular, the vendors providing the system security are not sensitive to security and privacy issues. The servers have not been maintained properly and the selection of passwords (many had default passwords or easily guessable passwords) was irresponsible and showed a complete lack of attention to security. I strongly urge that the priority on security for privacy purposes be increased significantly, both in local government offices and vendors providing solutions to these local governments. I believe that the citizens and the people responsible for protecting their information are significantly at risk.Best regards,Joichi Ito

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I just received an email from one of my best friends urging me to stop fueling disinformation and anti-Americanism. He also urged me to stop comparing the US to Nazi Germany. I've also had some private email exchanges with some conservatives about some of the issues I've written about lately. I've started feeling like a politician trying to keep my liberal and conservative friend happy by mostly posting questions, posting notes of other people's comments and quoting people. Now that I'm being urged from both sides, I guess I should clarify my own position.Here is where I stand. What I'm mainly against is the conservative media in the US and the right wing one-liners like "bomb Iraq to democracy" which I saw on a lot of conservative web sites before the invasion of Iraq. I remember very clearly Colin Powell's speech at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. I was moved by the speech. He made me feel like maybe it was the right decision to go into Iraq... but he hung his whole argument on WMD. I still have not been convinced that the invasion on Iraq was the right decision, but I'm probably willing to hear arguments more than my more liberal friends.What disturbs me the most about this administration is the drift towards secrecy, the Patriot Act and profiling with the assistance of advanced technology. I think that is REALLY BAD and I am not convinced that profiling really works.Regarding my quote of Pastor Martin Niemöller... I'm not comparing the US to Nazi Germany. It's an eloquent statement about the necessity to look out for human rights, even those of people who are not in your tribe. I think human rights are at risk globally. It's easy to see abuses and say things about human rights abuses in other countries, but I'm just urging American to watch out for the stuff happening right under your noses.Although I am a liberal, I find some of the anti-American stuff a bit over-board and I find some of the conservatives arguing convincingly on many issues. I may become emotional at times, but I'm trying to keep my thinking above the emotional level. I will try to present what I believe is a balanced view here and I want to thank all of the people who have posted here and sent me thoughtful disagreements and urgings. (Although some of the disagreements have been not-so-thoughtful.)

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Many of the old men I know are cranky. They are often cranky because they've been fighting long battles. Battles about technology, battles about politics, battles about education, all kind of battles. Most old men have their hot buttons that trigger a rush of memories of these battles. When most old men talk to each other, they sense these hot buttons and generally avoid each other's hot buttons. The rule about avoiding religion and politics as dinner topics comes from the fact that there are many hot buttons in these areas.Last night I was one of these cranky old men. We were talking about terrorism and profiling. I am a veteran of many battles on privacy and security. I didn't realize how much of a cranky old man I'd become until a friend of mine last night kept pushing that hot button with the opinion that profiling was a good thing and that a few false positives were worth the cost to protect America. I got completely emotional and ruined the tone of the friendly dinner conversation. The problem with a dinner conversation is usually there is some alcohol involved which clouds memory (access to facts stored in cranky old brain) and logical thinking, and you can't page slap people with your previous arguments. As a cranky old man last night I realized how difficult it was for me to have casual conversation about a hot button topic and how difficult it was to have a rigorous discussion about complicated topics when I didn't have access to a method of providing context. I felt like I was just beating my chest to show I felt strongly about the issue...I think this issue of having difficulty engaging in a discussion with someone on a topic you understand well where you have a strong opinion is an issue that many academics face. This forces them to climb their ivory towers and engage in esoteric debates in an esoteric language with their peers and not reach down to the average person. This is also why many academics avoid publishing in popular media.I wonder if there is a solution to this problem. I think layers of blogs is one thing that helps. I consult with a number of academic sources to come up with my somewhat simplistic assertions about certain issues. Others write about it even more casually on their blogs. If things are attributed correctly, one can usually drill down to the source (although many academics sources are still not online). Sometimes it works the other way around. I write about something casually and accidentally trigger a bunch of hot buttons which ends up providing more context and rigor.The scary thing is, I can see myself starting to want to only have discussions with people where we read each other's blogs, a sort of blogademic.

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Maher Arar, a dual Canadian-Syrian citizen was arrested at a stopover in JFK in New York and deported to Syria by the US government. It seems to be unclear how they decided he was a "suspected terrorist" but it took close to a year in a prison in Syria and a lot of torture for them to decide that he was OK to be sent back to Canada. Obviously, it's probably easier for a Syrian national to get on a "list" than a Japanese, but this really scary. They say he had had a relationship with another suspected terrorist who is also being imprisoned and tortured now in Syria. He says he barely knew the guy.So what does this mean for us? If we meet someone, we should not "become friendly" with them until we are certain that they are not a suspected terrorist. What does this mean? We need to make sure they don't hang out with other suspected terrorists. So if you believe in six degrees, it's likely at some point you will be a suspected terrorist.How do they know if you hang out with someone? Friendster? LinkedIn? Your email? We need to be VERY careful about the privacy of not just the content of our communication, but the privacy of who we are in touch with, often called sigint, or signal intelligence.Seriously though, this will cause a chilling effect on meeting, calling, emailing or otherwise "being in touch with" anyone who you don't know very well that could land you on the "suspected terrorist" list.For articles about the Maher Arar case, just do a google news search. The article where he finally talks to the media directly is here.

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The Associated PressU.S. Unveils ID SystemWASHINGTON (AP) -- The public got its first look Tuesday at fingerprinting and photo equipment that will be installed at 115 airports and 14 seaports to check identities of millions of foreign visitors.The equipment, which goes into use Jan. 5, will allow inspectors to check identities of visitors against those on terrorist watch lists.[...]The system consists of a small box that digitally scans fingerprints and a spherical computer camera that snaps pictures. It will be used for the estimated 24 million foreigners traveling on tourist, business and student visas who enter through an airport or seaport.I wonder what they're going to use this data for? I wonder if they are going to "share" it with other governments. If they start putting these things all over the place, the risk to someone getting on some "list" will not be limited to just being harassed entering the US.

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The Japan Time'REGAINING PUBLIC SAFETY' - Cops to sniff out illegal foreigners in Tokyo By HIROSHI MATSUBARA, Staff writer Immigration authorities, police and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Friday they will take joint action to halve the number of foreigners without visas in the capital within five years. The Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau, the bureau's Tokyo branch, the metropolitan government and the Metropolitan Police Department issued a joint statement saying they would cooperate more closely toward this goal. They believe that half of the estimated 250,000 undocumented foreigners in Japan live or work in Tokyo. "An increasing number of visaless foreigners engage in serious crimes, and it is pointed out that the problem is closely linked to organized crime by foreigners," Justice Minister Daizo Nozawa asserted during Friday's news conference.This is all part of Governor Ishihara's ethnic cleansing of Tokyo thing. He's blaming all of the horrible crimes on "foreigners" and using that to ramp up police force and will probably lead to increased intrusions of privacy.I do know that there have been increased activity of foreign organized crime groups in Japan, but his talking about "criminal DNA" in foreigners is horrible and will just help justify people in looking away when heavy handed police tactics are used on foreigners in Japan. Bad bad bad...

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Lauren Weinstein, Co-Founder of People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR) and the moderator of PRIVACY Forum just started a blog. He's not sure whether blogs are a good thing yet, but lets hope he keeps it up. He's one of the important mailing list guys that I've been try to convert to blogging. Dave Farber and Declan are two others. ;-)

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Internet NewsReport: ISPs Block 17 Percent of Legit E-mailBy Brian MorrisseyTop Internet service providers blocked 17 percent of legitimate permission-based e-mail in the first half of the year, according to a report issued by Return Path.via Scott MaceI pronounce email officially broken. If 17 percent of legit email is being blocked by spam filters, it's not officially working. No wonder I'm using blogs, IRC and IM for my primary modes of connecting with important people these days.I don't care what excuses people give. The people who made smtp should have thought more about host authentication and the people who made IPv4 should have made longer IP addresses. My guess is that there were people who were voicing concerns who had more vision.I have a feeling we are going to be kicking ourselves in the same way when we realize we "forgot" to put privacy into ID systems.

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Yesterday, I gave a talk to approximately 150 IT vendors who will be installing the national ID systems at the local government offices and will the the "privacy advisors" to the local governments.Almost a year ago, I was handing out leaflets and protesting with a megaphone in Ginza to try to stop the national ID. Then the bill passed and I joined the oversight committee for the national ID to try to increase their awareness of security and privacy issues. Then I started working with the local governments who "opted out" of the national ID. Now that the system is in place full swing, I am working hard to increase the awareness of the people who will be installing and training the people who are in charge of one of the weakest links in the system, the point of entry into the database. At the same time, I am working on educating the ministry and the awareness in the public so that we can prevent "function drift", or the use of the national ID # beyond the scope of its original intent, which is to use it only for government services.I am supportive of my colleagues who are still working on protesting the system and local governments resisting it, but I am focusing my attention on future systems that the government is planning to implement and to try to do what I can to improve the security and privacy of those systems that have already been deployed or will imminently be deployed.

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There is a lot of talk about identity these days. You MUST remember that identities are like names. You are NOT your identity. Your identity points to you. Everyone has multiple identities. Roger Clark describes this as the difference between entities and identities. You are an entity. Your name, your role in the company, your relationship with your child, they are different identities. Multiples identities isn't just about having more than one email address or chat room nym. A multitude of identities is an essential component in protecting privacy and interacting in an exceedingly digital world.

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On June 11, we released a report on privacy technology and legistlation that was the product of a great deal of work by experts around the world. It was funded by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications of Japan. I am urging them to make this an ongoing effort with annual updates. If you read the report and found it useful, please email me or post something here so I can pass on the praise to the Ministry. ;-)The report can be found on my wiki.

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We received funding from the Japanese government to produce a global report on privacy technology and legislation. The report is called "A Report of Research on Privacy for Electronic Government." We tried to get the best experts around the world to help us on this report. Please take a look at it. It is available for download in its entirety under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 license.Wiki Page on Privacy Report

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Good show US democracy! Now if you can just shut down that war of yours.Howard RheingoldIs there still a pulse in the badly injured body of American democracy? Cynics will say that it will go underground, but I choose to believe that the US Congress has succeeded in shutting down the ultra-panoptic Total Information Awareness program -- the scheme to protect Americans from tyranny through total dataveillance of our every move. I say yay. Maybe those telephone calls you and I made to our Congressional representatives made a difference.Virtually without dissent, the House conferees accepted a bipartisan Senate provision written by Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, stipulating that the program cannot be used against American citizens. The conferees also agreed to end research on the program — in effect shutting it down — in 90 days unless the Pentagon submits a detailed report on the program's cost, goals, impact on civil liberties and prospects for success against terrorists. What this means, in effect, is that if the program continues at all, it will be as a low-intensity research project under close Congressional supervision.

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Nobuo Ikeda has recently been attacking me. I wrote about this before. He recently wrote an email to Dave Farber's list attacking me again. This attack seems to have more substance so I have tried to address his points. I wonder if this is the "critical debate" I've been fighting for. ;-p

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The New York TimesState Department Link Will Open Visa Database to Police OfficersJanuary 31, 2003By JENNIFER 8. LEE WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 - Law enforcement officials across the country will soon have access to a database of 50 million overseas applications for United States visas, including the photographs of 20 million applicants.[...]Critics also point to what they call the unwelcome precedent of foreign-intelligence sharing with local law enforcement, even if the intelligence community's initial contribution to the new system may seem somewhat innocuous. That component is the Open Source Information System, a portal where 14 agencies pool unclassified information. Such material in the new system will includes text articles from foreign periodicals and broadcasts, technical reports and maps. Cool. Ranger Joe will be able to read my blog on his PDA!This sort of thing is difficult to "turn off" once it gets going. I think you should read "Law Enforcement officals across the country" to mean "just about anybody willing to bribe a cop." Scary scary scary.

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I appears that one blog, DynaWeb was the concern of the Chinese government (I read this first on Dave Winer's Weblog) which had information about how to get around the government filters. According to the DynaWeb site, Blogger/Blogspot seems to be available again with only DynaWeb's DNS being screwed up by the government poinpointing the target. According the DynaWeb, it was an article in Forbes by Juliana Liu that pushed the Chinese government to remove the filter on Blogspot.

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OK I thought it was kind of cool to be censored by the Chinese and even bragged about it on TV, but I just got an email from Jason and I think it's time we get serious and get all hands on deck trying to fix this silly situation. You can start by reading the entry in Jason's blog. If anyone from China is reading this and has a good idea about how to get blogspot uncensored, email or post something here. I know some people, but don't know exactly which buttons to push...

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Saw this first on Boing BoingWell, you know you're onto something BIG when China bans what you're doing...OpenflowsBlogistan, 2000[GMT] 10 January, 2003:"Bloggers" from all over China are reporting that they are unable to access their on-line journals or "blogs".Journals hosted at Blogspot.com and other blog providers have joined a growing list of sites blocked by Chinese authorities.

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found this on SmartmobsRhizomeiSee is an inverse surveillance application for wireless devices and web-browsers that enables users to monitor and avoid CCTV surveillance cameras. iSee users are presented with an interactive map showing the locations of known CCTV cameras in public space. Users click on the map to specify a point of origin and destination, and iSee employs artificial intelligence algorithms to determine a path of least surveillance between the two points that avoids as many cameras as possible. So Cool! I want iSee built into my phone. I guess we could just write an i-Apli Java script to do it on our Docomo phones... hmm...

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A bureaucrat that with whom we have had numerous debates suddenly visited my office today wanting to talk. Gohsuke had told him to read Lawrence Lessig's book, Code. The bureaucrat read the book over the holidays and wanted to see me right away to tell me about it. (Today is the first day of work after the Japanese holidays. He said he, "got it." He liked the book very much and finally realized the scale and the context of the issues we had been debating and now understood what we were talking about. This story has several lessons... Focusing on specifics before you share a framework is futile; a well written book by an important person (the bureaucrat insisted on confirming the social status of Lessig) can change everything; the "meta-discussion" is less threatening than specific issues with responsibilities and associated budgets. ;-) Anyway, thanks Larry!

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As I struggle to prepare my thoughts for the Davos Blueprint for Japan 2020 panel, I keep ending up at the conclusion that Japan is not a functioning democracy. Although it is a loop, the lack of transparency, the lack of an open function market, the lack of a free and independent media, the lack of a functioning judiciary... All of these things point to the fact that we don't have a democracy. I'm not blaming anyone for this and I think that many people are sincerely trying to reform Japan, but I do believe that it is much deeper than just some stimulation packages and lip service to transparency.Larry talks about the "Framers" in "The Future of Ideas" and what he says about them sounds pretty good. It sounds like the "Framers" really tried very hard to structure a democracy that is robust against corruption and able to self-correct. So, I decided to ask Professor Lessig about democracy. (It sure is nice having a comparative constitutional law professor in the neighborhood. ;-) )Professor Lessig gave me some great things to think about which I thought I would share. (This may not be very new to people who don't live in a totalitarian state... if there is such a think these days...)

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I'm sure it's bad everywhere, but the struggle for privacy is very tough in Japan. The privacy bill as it is currently written has the risk of limiting the freedom of journalists in collecting information. For this reason, privacy advocates have been at odds with the mass media generally and journalists in general tend to be negative about privacy issues. (Although some journalists have been doing a great job covering stuff.) Privacy debates in Japan tend to be rather emotional without dealing with the technical issues very much. It's kind of like arguing in court without an understanding of the law. Since I began protesting the national ID in Japan I have found that I am now able to convince most technical people about the merits of having privacy built into the system and it is now mostly non-technical and "interested parties" arguing...

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The Asahi reports (in Japanese) that Ministry of Finance has installed hidden cameras in Narita and Kansai international airports. They were installed for the World Cup but are now used to automatically match your face against a database consisting of their blacklist as well as blacklists from other ministries. It appears that the cameras are installed in the passageway after people get off of the plane and are on their way to baggage claim and customs. The Asahi points out that people are constitutionally protected in Japan from being photographed secretly by the government except in special circumstances and it is unlikely that this would qualify. The Japanese government is notorious for being sloppy with sensitive information often leaking secrets to foreign governments and personal information to criminals. Recently a tape containing records from the National ID system were stolen from a car. My question is, WHY WERE THEY IN THE CAR IN THE FIRST PLACE. The procedure for handling the destruction of the tapes in the airport is still a black box. I assume this is a security measure. bah!Thanks for this link Tai

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saw this first on Dave Winer's weblog The whistleblowers at WorldCom, Enron and the FBI, Cynthia Cooper, Sherron Watkins and Colleen Rowley won the honor from Time Magazine this year. This is great. They deserve it. They must be protected and honored. You can't have whistleblowers without privacy and the whistleblower protection bill that I am working on is also an important component. I've missed the last few meetings and I feel guilty. I see the bill headed towards bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that won't help anyone. Mental note to myself to make comments on the current draft which I don't agree...

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I just uploaded my PGP Key because Cyrus mentioned that I didn't have one my web page. It's quite an old key that I created in 1997. The good thing is that it's signed by many people. The bad thing is that since it has been sitting around for a long time, It's more likely to have been stolen. So I'm trying to figure out whether I should dump the key and start using a new one. I have made a new one, but no one has signed it and I never end up using it. It's also kind of...

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Japan TimesThe Japan Times Online Microsoft to reveal source code to Japan, which has eyed Linux Microsoft Corp. will disclose the source code of the Windows operating system to the Japanese government in line with the government's e-Japan project, company officials said Wednesday. I recently made a public comment on the record at the oversight committee for the National ID about Microsoft and trying to get them to open up the source code. I wonder if this had any effect. I guess we must all have had an effect. I assume many people have been saying this. It's a great...

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Roger Clarke, one of my favorite privacy experts and the person I learned the notion of separation of "entities" and "identities" has written a paper about the problems with ENUM. I wrote about ENUM when Australia announced their initiative. I am on a mission to make sure that Japan doesn't try to link ENUM with the national ID...Roger ClarkeFrom: Roger Clarke Subject: Glitterati: ENUM: Case Study in Social Irresponsibility I've just finished a paper on a proposed Internet scheme that will have extremely serious implications if it's implemented: ENUM - A Case Study in Social Irresponsibility http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/enumISOC02.html As always, constructively...

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Heavy bloggers will have already seen this article. As we push for more privacy in Japan and I try to get the Japanese government to take a serious look at the value of anonymity, this sort of thing makes it difficult. It looks like a the group of experts were about to be "looks like co-option" fodder, but managed to make enough noise to get word out. I wish I had collaborators like these on my study groups in Japan.New York Times SURVEILLANCE Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Internet By JOHN MARKOFF he Pentagon research agency that is...

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Plastic Putting The Boots In — Photo Lab Grasses Up Pot Growers found on BBC News written by holgate, edited by John (Plastic) excerpt A house in Leith, near Edinburgh, was raided by police, leading to the arrest of five people, and the seizure of marijuana plants 'valued' at £15,000, after receiving a tip-off from photo-processing staff at the local branch of Boots. It's believed that a lab technician identified the plants when developing a set of prints, and got on the phone to the boys in blue."While you can understand photo-labs wishing to protect themselves from obscene images, given...

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I'm sitting on the inquiry committee where we are revising the consumer protection law. We're discussing provisions to protect whistleblowers. I'm very passionate about this issue. I think that with increasing ability to track people and profile them, we need to protect the identities of whistleblowers. I am proposing that anonymity and pseudonymity using privacy technology should be considered when writing the new law. Certain types of interactions with the government should be allowed in an anonymous way. Currently all whistleblowing and FOIA is on a fully disclosed ID basis without clear protection of the "list" that is created...

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I can't believe Japan is #29. I think it should be lower... but I guess they don't kill reporters in Japan... they just co-opt them. I guess it depends on what you call "press freedom"...Reporters Without BordersReporters Without Borders is publishing the first worldwide press freedom index Reporters Without Borders is publishing for the first time a worldwide index of countries according to their respect for press freedom. It also shows that such freedom is under threat everywhere, with the 20 bottom-ranked countries drawn from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The situation in especially bad in Asia, which contains...

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Spotted on David Farber's IP Australian ITPhone system could have your number Kate Mackenzie OCTOBER 07, 2002 A SINGLE telephone number doubling as an email address could soon be available in Australia despite fears the technology could become a de facto identification number. Under the ENUM system being analysed by the Australian Communications Authority, one number could track down a person via a home or mobile phone number, or an email or website address. This is SOOO bad. Where is my favorite Australian privacy expert Roger Clarke? In Japan the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (who...

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The EFF is one of the few organizations fighting on the issues of copyright and privacy in the US courts. They need our support more than ever. I just sent my contribution. If you care about the Net shouldn't you?...

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I had asked Gosuke to ghost write a short article for the Tokyo Shimbun (newspaper) based on a discussion with me. It was about the problems with the National ID. (I DID review it.) Then, I was asked to write an blurb in a book about the National ID so I asked Gosuke to add some more of my thoughts to the aritcle and we gave it to the publisher. Before I knew it, with the mere contribution of a 2 page ghost-written article, I was the co-author of the book, my name on the front of the book...

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So I've been helping Justin try to get his Journalist Visa for Japan. I wrote a letter and helped him get one which got taken away the when he left Japan last time. Now he is applying for another one and I've written another letter. Justin Hall Update: They asked my sponsor, Joichi Ito, to call (because he is Japanese, he might "understand the nuance" they suggested). He did, from Europe. Nice of him. He reports, "They didn't ask me anything, but told me that the Tokyo office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was reviewing your case and that...

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Now I'm sitting on a panel sponsored by the government about security. The panel is focused on the security of government networks. I am sitting on the far left and the guy in favor of the national ID is sitting on the far left. I just talked about the importance of privacy and the fact that privacy is different from security. I talked about how privacy is not only a right of citizens, but a necessary element for demcracy. I talked about how the OECD guidelines for privacy were written before the Internet and that we needed to look...

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Found this on David Farber's IP This is crazy, but very typical. Japanese schools have banned home pages of students because of "privacy concerns"... I guess students will be banned from using blogs in order to protect them from themselves... ;-p Leoville Use a blog, go to jail? One of the Leoville Town Square regulars, BEACHTechie, aka Sam, is a high school student in Virginia Beach, VA. He recently got busted by the school administration for blogging, of all things. They seem to think blogging from school is a violation of their acceptable use policies. Perhaps it is. Sammy will...

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Sakiyama-san is a co-founder of the Japan chapter of CPSR and one of the few privacy activists in Japan. He mentioned this issue at the last CPSR meeting, and I've been meaning to look into it. The perp of this whole thing, the Electronic Network Consortium, merged with the Internet Association of Japan (IAJ). I WAS a Councilor of the Internet Association Japan and was on their web page the when I check at the CPSR meeting, but I just checked and noticed that I am no longer on their web page. Hmm... I was going to threaten to quit...

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Stewart Alsop (who I met recently at the Fortune Brainstorm 2002) writes in his column in Fortune Magazine about GoodContacts. When Barak was visiting a few weeks ago, he was raving about it as well. GoodContacts is basically a contact management package that talks to Outlook or Act! and spams them with email and asks people to update their info. The good thing about GoodContacts is that they don't keep your contact list, they just enable you to spam from your computer. That's why I thought about using it until I realized I would have to switch to Outlook. (and...

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I am on the inquiry committee working on rewriting the basic consumer protection law. We are discussing enforcement. I mentioned the FTC action against MS Passport. We talked about how something like the FTC is essential in Japan. Currently the privacy bill being contemplated doesn't link with the consumer protection law and there is no body that can attack a problem like the MS Passport issue from the fair trade, consumer protection and privacy aspects as the FTC did in the US. I have 45 minutes left until the end of the meeting so if anyone has anything that...

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Japan has a process where they make boards and inquiry panels to discuss important issues with experts and the public. These inquiry panels are defined by law and are supposed to be an important part of the law making process, but in fact they are often used to diffuse public pressure and just act like they care. I am often asked to join such panels and I find I learn a lot about what is going on and can usually influence the direction ever so slightly. I usually feel this is better than not doing anything, but I am often...

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I just got a call from a Kyodo News reporter asking for a comment about the Ministry of Finance (MOF) leaking (accidentally?) financial metrics on their web page before the official annoucement date. They are apparently going to make some announcement about their mistake and he wanted a quote from me to run in the story. I can't seem to find anything on the web about this. Does anyone know anything? (I thought it was the FSA, but it was the MOF) Anyway, the comment I made was that comparing Nippon Ham vs. Worldcom the CFO of Worldcom is taken...

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This is scary in many ways. On the one hand, the Chinese are trying to "cleanse Yahoo". On the other hand, the RIAA is trying to cleanse the US of Chinese copyright pirates. The RIAA is attacking the Internet backbone. Andy Oram and I talked before about the idea that the Internet may break up into a bunch of networks, each with different rules and much less end-to-end connectivity. It feels like it is starting to happen. Maybe the great push for connectivity is going change to the great push for division. I guess alternative networks may emerge in the...

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As I struggle to get gnupg working on my XP box, this is great news! Thanks for pointing this out Sen.The Register - PGP is back! By Andrew Orlowski in London Posted: 19/08/2002 at 13:20 GMT Phil Zimmermann's PGP is back in the hands of an independent company, after Network Associates agreed to sell the technology it mothballed back in March to a start-up specially created to market PGP. Jon Callas, the former PGP chief scientist, becomes the CTO of the new company, PGP Corporation. Will Price, former Director of Engineering at NAI, becomes VP of engineering....

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found on Slashdot An article in Popular Science about what a national ID would look like and contain. On the issue of social security numbers on ID card, they mention that even though social security numbers on ID cards have been rejected by the federal government, "it's a good guess the Department of Homeland Security would manage it". On smart card technology, they say:For example, an ER doctor could view medical information and enter data about treatment (if the card's data storage device is read-write capable), but could not see security-related data (such as a traveler's flight history, or...

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found on POLITECH. My comments in italics NASA plans to read terrorist's minds at airports By Frank J. Murray THE WASHINGTON TIMES Airport security screeners may soon try to read the minds of travelers to identify terrorists. Officials of the National Aeronautics and space Administration have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is developing brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm, which it did not identify. Space technology would be adapted to receive and analyze brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into computerized programs "to detect passengers who potentially might pose a threat," according to...

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From the Cato Daily Dispatch August 14, 2002 http://www.cato.org/ http://www.cato.org/dispatch/08-14-02d.html The American Bar Association voted yesterday to oppose the Bush administration's secret detention of foreign nationals after the Sept. 11 attacks, urging that their names be disclosed and they be given immediate access to lawyers and family members, Reuters reported. The nation's largest lawyers group joined civil libertarians and others who have criticized the government's policy of secret and prolonged detentions. In "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Protecting Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism," ( http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-443es.html ) Timothy Lynch, associate director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, argues that government officials have...

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I got my national ID in the mail today. Setagaya-ku used an outside agency and we got ours later than other wards. Now I have to figure out what to do. I personally think that asking to change the number or sending it back sends a political message, and maybe I should do that, but for real change I have to push and lobby closer to where the decision are being made. Maybe I'll try to meet with the mayor of our ward and explain to him why I am unhappy. I wonder how open people will be about...

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Atrocities in american airports, a London Daily Alert A Brazilian man wrote about an incident where he was extremely abused by INS in LA. It has gotten a lot of airplay on the Net so you may have seen it, but in case you haven't, here it is. Brock Meeks confirms with the INS that the incident actually occured although the details are unclear. http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200208/msg00034.html Brock Meeks is a respected journalist and a google on Ricardo Abude will give you some references. He is aparently a real person. If this story is true, it's very scary. I recently met someone...

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From David Farber's IP Mailing ListFrom: Lauren Weinstein Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 12:46:38 To: David Farber Subject: Freedom Ad from the Ad Council Dave, A marvelous video spot is starting to appear, sponsored by the Ad Council. It's worth watching for. It begins with a teenager who approaches the help counter at a library. He tells the librarian that he can't find the books he has on a list, which he hands her. She looks them up in the computer, and replies, "These books are no longer available... may I have your name, please?" When the kid walks away...

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So my Brainscan (the 3 minute blurb that we give in front of everyone) was something like the following: I'm the only Japanese at this conference of over 100 people. I guess it is an acknowledgement to the 2nd largest economy but a sign that everyone is saying, "call us when you figure it out." I'm on the China panel today so maybe that means that everyone thinks Japan is soon going to be part of China. Anyway... The Japanese economic problem is based on the dysfunctional market and the lack of a working democracy. At this conference everyone has...

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Quoted from Slashdot (I quoted the whole thing since it is short. Thanks for finding this Sen!) Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 09, @06:36PM from the private-enterprise dept. davecl writes: "The off-shore datahaven, HavenCo, is doing well, according to the BBC. HavenCo is based on a WW2 gunnery platform several miles of the English coast. In the 60s it was outside the 3 mile territorial waters, and a retired Army officer moved there and proclaimed it the independent state of Sealand. In the 80s territorial waters were extended to 12 miles. Sealand's nation status is this unclear, but...